JERUSALEM – Despite increased security cooperation in recent years and the signing of a peace treaty, the Egyptian government has allowed a flood of small arms and explosives to reach Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank, according to the chairman of the Israeli Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

“Egypt is doing to us in the south what Syria is doing to America in Iraq,” Yuval Steinitz told reporters here yesterday.

The harsh assessment of Cairo’s role in allowing shipments of guns and bombs to Hamas comes as that organization is poised to assume legitimate political power today in legislative elections. In a policy speech to a conference at Herzliya, Israel’s acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, yesterday urged Palestinian Arabs not to allow extremists to take hold of their national destiny – a reference to Hamas. Leaders of Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza in recent days have left open the possibility of tactical negotiations with Israel if they were to assume power, but at the same time are running candidates that praise suicide bombers. One case is the mother of such an attacker. Most polls say they will win 40% of the seats in the legislature in today’s election.

The Jewish state once again is counting on Egypt’s security services to help secure the border with Gaza it left in August and September, but also to help unify and moderate the Palestinian Authority’s myriad security services. If it turns out the Egyptians are playing both sides of the terror war, Israel could find itself in the same scenario as it did in 2000 and 2001, when it coordinated its counterterrorism with a Palestinian security apparatus that was funding and providing safe haven for the terrorists it was supposed to catch.

Mr. Steinitz yesterday said that Israel has quietly asked the Egyptians to control the flow of small arms into Gaza and the Negev desert in the last three years. “But Egypt did nothing while Jordan has done its utmost. Ninety percent of the weapons going into Gaza are coming from Egypt,” he said. Mr. Steinitz, a former philosophy professor, is in a position to know, as chairman of the panel that oversees Israel’s intelligence and secret services he is privy to some of country’s most closely held secrets.

Mr. Steinitz yesterday said that statistics from Israel’s internal security service, known as Shin Bet, estimate that 10,000 small arms are smuggled into Gaza from Egypt annually, as well as several tons of explosives and a handful of handheld rockets. “Egypt is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem,” he said.

When asked about the arms smuggling yesterday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, said, “Egypt has been playing a positive role in the peace process and in helping the Palestinian Authority to take steps to rein in the terrorists.” A senior Palestinian Authority official on Monday said many of the arms in the West Bank and Gaza were sold by Israeli organized criminals and – until the disengagement – by some settlers looking to profit from military surplus.

Senior Egyptian officials have pledged publicly to curb the smuggling into Gaza.

Israel’s relationship with Egypt is strained following the recent discovery of a new smuggling tunnel underneath a main access road between Gaza and the West Bank known as Karni. This week, Mr. Steinitz’s committee accused Israel’s defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, of misleading them in December when he told the Knesset that America had brokered a final agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the Rafah border crossing. The document was only a draft.

“If you asked Hamas to choose between its political base in Syria and its logistical network in the Sinai, they would choose the Sinai,” Mr. Steinitz said. Syria hosts a political leader, Khaled Mashaal, who in December appealed for more funding from Iran in a meeting with the supreme leader.

For Mr. Steinitz, Israel’s fight against Hamas is akin to America’s with Al Qaeda. “Israel capitulated to American demands by allowing them to run in the elections,” he said. “It would be like allowing Al Qaeda terrorists to run for election in Afghanistan.”

He pointed to tactical success in killing Hamas leaders, but strategic deficits. “Hamas today is in a stronger position, and it is about to get political legitimacy,” he said. In contrast, he offered his opinion that while America has failed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the Bush administration has scored a strategic victory in their terror war. “America is winning. Al Qaeda has lost its base in Afghanistan and friendly governments are helping on things like incitement.”